Shattered Dreams
by Gwen Harkness
Summary: Gwen sees Jack and Ianto together with devastating consequences. Please R


_A/N: Set sometime between Combat and End of Days. First one shot, I might do a sequel but I'm not sure. It's just a little idea that came to me but I hope you like it. Pretty pretty pretty please review. Enjoy. _

Gwen had seen it. She had seen it all. The image felt as if it was burnt on to her retina. There they were. The two of them. Lips locked, bodies pressed against each other. The memory was so vivid. Every tiny detail in perfect crystal clear clarity. Even when her eyes were closed she could still see them. She tried to block it from her memory but it was there, running through her head over and over again. Ianto; sweet, loyal Ianto and Jack; beautiful, mysterious Jack.

She hadn't _wanted_ to see them, it was an accident. It had been a long day. The girl was only nine, mauled in the street outside her house by a Weevil. They couldn't save her, they were too late. All Gwen had wanted that evening was to fall into bed and just forget everything. She had left the Hub with Tosh and Owen. They had laughed together as the lift rose up the shaft, pretending everything was ok but even Gwen had seen the pain in Owen's eyes as the final traces of life drained from the little girl. Gwen remembered the exasperation, the way she had sighed, as she realised she had left her car keys behind. After saying her goodbyes to the others she returned to the Hub. But her keys had vanished from her desk where she had left them.

Jack would be in his office she thought, all she had to do was ask, then she could finally go home. She opened the door to his office, sighing. Then, she saw it. Her whole world seemed to slow down to almost a standstill as she saw them pressed against the wall of Jack's office. She watched Jack in slow motion, his hands wound through Ianto's hair as he kissed him. It took Gwen a second to register what she was seeing. A second before the tears came cascading down her face in a great waterfall. She knew she was with Rhys and she loved him, she really did, but not in the way she loved Jack. She was too late... Jack was gone, he had offered himself to her and she had pushed him away and now he had Ianto. She ran from the room, her vision clouded by tears but she didn't care. She had to get away because every second she stood there she died a little more. She loved him ... She loved Jack. There, she had finally admitted it to herself after all this time. She had known it, deep down right from that first kiss in the fertility clinic after Carys. All this time she had spent trying to pretend she didn't feel anything for him. All this time telling Rhys and anyone else who would listen that he was her boss and they were just friends. Maybe if she told herself it enough times she would believe it. But when it came down to it, Gwen finally realised he was the only one she had ever wanted and now she had lost any chance she ever had with him. She sobbed so hard that she thought her heart might split in half. She stumbled through the Hub, the world beginning to spin around her. She flung open the door to the conference room and fell into the nearest chair. Burying her face in her hands, she cried bitterly. He was gone. Her world was crumbling around her. They hadn't seen her there, Gwen was sure of that. They were too busy even to notice her she thought, which only made her cry harder. She could leave. Pretend she hadn't seen it. Go home to Rhys, eat lasagne, watch telly, go to bed, wake up and come in tomorrow like nothing had ever happened.

"No!" she yelled out loud. She couldn't live her life like that! Jack had shown her so much more, shown her everything she could have if she was with him... But what had Gwen done? She had thrown it back in his face like an unwanted Birthday present! How could she have been so blind?

For the first time since that rainy Cardiff evening at the scene of the murder, Gwen wished she had never met Jack, never joined Torchwood. Maybe Suzie would still be alive if it wasn't for her... Her whole body shook as she sobbed. She couldn't come into work every day and feel like this whenever she looked at her boss, like there was a huge hole in her chest where something was missing. If only she could forget...

"Forget..." She repeated slowly out loud "Forget!"

It was from that moment that she knew what she had to do. Compound B67, Retcon, the amnesia pill. All of this would go away. All the longing and the hurt and the pain. It was so simple, yet so difficult. She would miss them all and this job and, what would they tell Rhys? But she was doing this for him too though. They could go back to how they were before all this crazy stuff that came along with Torchwood. Maybe in a few years they could get married, have a baby, they could just be normal... This was what she wanted she told herself over and over. There were at least a hundred excuses Gwen could come up with, but in the end it was Jack that drove her to make the decision. She stood up slowly, the tears still falling down her face. She took a small box from the draw at the front of the room. Pouring herself a glass of water and taking out two white tablets she sat down. She sobbed harder.

"Oh god Jack..." She whispered through tears and swallowed them without any further hesitation. Gwen knew that she was behaving irrationally, but she felt that she did not have a choice, she was too upset. She took a black permanent marker from the centre of the table and wrote three words on her hand. A message for Jack.

This is it, she thought. Goodbye Torchwood. This was what she wanted... She wouldn't feel anything for him anymore. She could go back to her old job and everything would be ok.

"Everything will be ok." She repeated it over and over under her breath like a mantra. Even though all she could hear were those words, her mind was spinning so fast, screaming at her. Telling her it wouldn't and her world with Jack in it, even if she couldn't have him, would be better that one without. She looked out of the glass windows, surveying the Hub for the last time with those memories. This place...it was amazing. She thought back to the first time she had seen it; the way she had gazed around, taking everything in while trying desperately to look calm and collected. She remembered the way Toshiko had started laughing when she walked in carrying that pizza. Gwen hadn't thought back then that there was even the slightest chance that only twenty four hours from then she would be one of them. Oh god...all those memories...how could she let them go? Owen coming out of that cell totally naked, Jack teaching her how to fire a gun, playing basketball with the team in the hub, driving rotas, Emma and The Talk. All those memories...

"Oh god...all this... I'm going to lose it. All the memories... I can't! No I can't! Oh god someone help me!" She sobbed. But then there was the other memory, the predominant memory. One that was so terrible, so overwhelming that it seemed to erase all the others.

"No... This is what I want..." She told herself out loud. She tried to sound firm but her voice wavered and cracked as a fresh river of tears ran down her face. She felt her eyes beginning to close and she lay her head down on the cold hard table. Not long now she thought, all of this will disappear. Technically...all that stuff with Owen wouldn't have happened if she didn't remember it, right? She now had her eyes totally closed, the need to sleep was overpowering but for some reason she tried to fight it. She forced her eyes open to gaze round the room for the final time. Her vision blurred and the room started spinning, forcing her to close them again. She sighed softly. When she woke up this morning she never thought this was how she would fall asleep. Gwen was faintly aware of her phone buzzing in her pocket, probably Rhys wondering where she was... She could feel the blackness closing in, she was so tired.

Then she saw him. Jack. They were in clouds and he was running towards her. He stopped a few feet in front of her and smiled.

"Gwen Cooper, I love you." He said softly before closing the gap between them gently kissing her. Then suddenly a hole opened up in the clouds and Jack fell through.

"No!" Gwen cried out. Then everything went black.

* * *

"What was that?" Jack said pulling away from the lips of the younger man.

"What was what, Sir?" Ianto asked.

"Someone yelled, over there." Jack pointed in the direction of the Conference Room.

He looked at Ianto and Ianto looked back at him. Jack grabbed two guns, threw one to Ianto and raced towards the Conference Room. They both held the guns out in front of them and approached the room.

"Jack!" Ianto yelled as he spotted the figure slumped on one of the chairs "It's Gwen!"

Jack rushed towards her and begun reeling off orders, "Ianto call Owen, get him here now! I'll try and get her down to the autopsy bay to work out what's wrong."

"Jack... Wait, look..." He lifted the box of Retcon from the middle of the table and handed it to Jack. Jack stared down at it.

"Get Owen! We might be able to do something!" Jack yelled "Gwen sweetheart, can you hear me? Gwen? I bet this was something to do with Rhys! I'm going to kill that man! Come on, wake up. Please Gwen, please." He said, his voice becoming more frantic.

"Jack-" Ianto started, putting his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Jack shouted shrugging the hand off.

"Jack... This is what Gwen wanted. Let her. Take her home, tell Rhys there was an accident; Tosh can give us a cover story. Just let her Jack, this is what she wants"

"No! I can't just..." He tailed off, realising his words were wasted. "Just go!" Jack yelled.

"Okay..." Ianto squeaked and scurried off to call the others, leaving Jack alone with Gwen.

He sat down in the chair next her, stroking her dark hair from her face.

"Oh Gwen... What was it? What happened?" Jack put his hand to his cheek to brush away the tears and kissed her gently. He took her hand in his and turned it over as he stared into the distance blankly. Then he saw it.

"Oh..." Jack breathed as he looked the black writing on her hand. Now he knew why. He held her warm body tight in his arms as he cried, whispering softly in her ear.

Written on the palm of Gwen's hand, in slightly smudged black permanent marker, were three words:

_I Love You_


End file.
